SkyWing Tales: Ferocious: Book I: The First Prophesy
by Quarx-Rylzma
Summary: A prophesy is mysteriously delivered to Rouge while she is guarding her eggs. How shall she take it?
1. Chapter I

_Dear Reader,_

_Please when pronouncing Rouge's name, please pronounce it 'Ruhj.' It's French._

_Thank you,_

_Rylzma_

Rouge was protecting her own clutch of egg that her now deceased mate, who was foolish enough to pick a fight with a SandWing without knowing how to fight one two months ago, had been preparing to have for years. Now, without him, Rouge had to guard the eggs constantly. She was also dead tired.

It was nearly sunset when Rouge heard those fateful wing beats. She didn't know what or who it was, but she did know that, whatever it was, it was not going anywhere near her eggs, even if it was a NightWing coming to deliver a prophecy.

She scoffed. _Who needs a prophecy anyway? They're useless, _she thought silently to herself.

Ironically, she soon discovered that the wing beats did belong to a NightWing. The dark-scaled beast, she discovered when it landed, was actually a dragonet, not yet a full-grown NightWing.

Rouge was finally able to make out his facial features. Overall, his facial features were handsome and serene. Still, Rouge felt the need to growl at the young, and apparently foolish, NightWing in warning.

Yet, despite her warning, the NightWing did not show any fear in his expression. His expression sustained that same blank calmness that he wore when he first entered. Rouge thought that this dragonet had a very surprising amount of courage. Then she began to wonder how many dragons it would take to falter his courage. A hundred? Two hundred? A thousand? Rouge would like to to see the when it happened.

Still, at the moment, it didn't matter sheep's fluff, to Rouge, whether he was the son of the mysterious NightWing queen or even one of her precious royal servants. The dragonet was going to be in agonizing pain for the rest of his life if he didn't leave her alone soon.

Still, it was important to know his name.

"Who are you?" Rouge growled ferociously.

"Morrowseer," the dragonet said simply.

"Well, Morrowseer, you have, right now, little time to to turn around and fly back to wherever you came from," Rouge said dangerously.

Rouge then closed her eyes and began to count to ten silently in her head. When she re-opened her eyes, she still saw Morrowseer with that same blank calmness expression on his face. She decided to push him out.

Before she could get up to push the NightWing off the side of the mountain, for she did not care about NightWings being as powerful as she was told, Morrowseer suddenly spoke. He spoke of a great war that would engulf Pyrrhia and divide the dragon tribes. He also spoke of eight eggs and nine, cursed dragons. He also spoke of an oasis that would burn, blister, and blaze with the sun hidden from them.

The final part caught Rouge's attention the most. It was about the eggs themselves. Two of the eggs contained three of the nine dragons. A pure white IceWing egg contains another, and the five other eggs were to be hatched on the brightest night. They were a MudWing egg as red as dragon's blood, a SeaWing egg that has to be rescued, a SandWing egg that has to be found, a NightWing egg shall come, and a RainWing egg of fate.

Morrowseer then repeated the prophesy four more times. By the time he was done, it was dark out and the three moons were nearly halfway to their zenith.

When he repeated the final word of of the prophesy for the fourth time, surprise flickered across Morrowseer's face immediately. He then started to look around the cave as if he was lost and he expected to be somewhere completely different other than in a cave located on the opposite side of the Claws of the Clouds Mountains, compared to the SkyWing palace, where a very crossed, tired, red-scaled, and sinister-looking SkyWing mother, is protecting her clutch of precious eggs. He gulped.

"Wh-who are you?" Morrowseer stammered with complete fear in his voice. "Wha-what h-happened?"

Rogue decided to tell him what happened, starting from the moment he entered her cave, in a very tired, stressed, and annoyed voice.

"I don't remember doing anything like that," Morrowseer said in a very confused voice after was Rouge finished with her tale.

Rouge thought this was strange. She tried to remember the expression on his face when she first saw Morrowseer. She then concluded, "Maybe you were possessed."

"If so, I'd better get back and tell our queen about this." Morrowseer then turned around and flew off into the night.

Rouge then collapsed onto the cave floor, next to her clutch of eggs, very tired. She then curled her tail around the eggs and cuddled up next to them. She then closed her eyes and went into a dreamless sleep.


	2. Chapter II

_Five years later..._

Ferocious was sitting next to his mother within the SkyWing Arena, with his talons covering his ears and his eyes shut tight. He never liked these moments with his mother, and loathed every second.

Today, a SkyWing, named Brute, was going against a SandWing, named Cobra. Things were looking very bad for Cobra, because Brute has just released a jet of flame that hit Cobra's poisonous barb and set the poison on fire. Ferocious could only barely block out Cobra's agonizing screams.

His heightened sense of hearing suddenly picked up his mother's voice through the roar of the crowd. "FEROCIOUS!"

Ferocious opened one, weary eye and saw his mother looking very crossed. Quite nervously, he responded with, "Yes, mother?"

His mother looked displeased with his response. "You got to pay attention to this fight. Especially this one, since SandWings are very dangerous and your father lost to one." She shook her head in the stupidity of her former mate.

Out in the arena pit, Cobra was foolishly trying to put out the fire by slapping his tail on the sand. Brute was circling around Cobra, waiting to see what shall happen. The crowd was chanting, "Brute! Brute! Brute!"

Ferocious wanted it all to be over. He opened his eyes and began looking around the arena for someone to talk to later.

He scanned the entire arena at eye level, from left to right, and found no other dragon or dragonet that he wanted to talk to at all. He lowered his head a bit and started to scan the arena from left to right.

It then when Ferocious finally found someone. A female dragonet, about the same age as him, with rust-colored scales, was sitting in front of him with her head bowed and eyes closed.

Cobra's entire tail was know on fire. Since he couldn't move it anymore, he was know running stupidly around the pit, doing everything to put out the fire. The crowd was now laughing at Cobra.

Ferocious couldn't wait any longer. He lifted his talons from his ears and prepared to jump.

"WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING, FEROCIOUS?!" his mother yelled.

Ferocious froze and looked at his mother. He suddenly got an idea of how to persuade his mother.

"Mother," Ferocious said without moving, "I'm going to only move a row down to get a better view of the fight."

When Ferocious said this, the fire has spread to Cobra's forelegs. Cobra then collapsed, still emitting his death throes. Brute decided to wait until the fire killed his combatant. The crowd roared.

Back in the stands, Rouge considered his son's request. "Okay, you may go. But I expect you to be back in the cave by sunset," she narrowed her eyes threateningly, "or else."

Ferocious knew perfectly what she meant. Just a couple months before, Ferocious thought it would be funny to pounce on his mother's tail. He landed just a little bit too hard, because the next thing he knew was that he was in a big hole in the very back of the cave, where a now-half-decayed IceWing starved to death, after getting on his mother's bad side also. There's also only one way in and one way out.

Ferocious shivered at the thought of seeing that poor IceWing again. _If only he had been smarter_, Ferocious thought. "Don't worry, mother, I shall be back by sunset."

"You'd better." Rouge then turned her attention to the pit, where Cobra, with his entire back now on fire, was now screaming out blood. Everyone was now chanting in unison, "DIE! DIE! DIE!"

Ferocious leapt from the place where he was sitting, to the empty space next to the rust-colored dragonet. He made such a noise that the dragonet didn't notice him when he landed over all of the noise that the spectators made when Cobra uttered his final yell of pain, then fell silent with blood pouring out of his mouth.

"HELLO!" Ferocious had to yell over the crowd's sudden yell. "MY NAME IS FEROCIOUS! DO YOU WANT TO TALK?"

The dragonet obviously heard over the crowd's cheering, because, when she opened her eyes-in which Ferocious found so amazingly beautiful, that he actually flinched-she looked at him for a moment and, when the crowd finally settled down a bit, said, "Why, hello, Ferocious. My name's Kestrel." Kestrel then looked at the sand pit, in which Cobra's corspe was now entirely engulfed in flames and was being moved by several SkyWing guards, armed with very long pokers, to an unused room off to the side of the pit so the matches could continue.

Kestrel looked back at Ferocious. "Want to move somewhere else, so we can actually hear each other?"

Ferocious looked at his mother with an expression on his face that clearly asked, "Can I?"

Rouge pondered upon whether or not her eldest child was responsible enough to go somewhere else, by himself, without her hovering over him, and without any other, trustful, adult dragons supervising for her, for a moment.

"Fine, you may go. But, be back by sunset," Rouge said sternly.

Ferocious was overjoyed. "Thank you, mother."

Rouge just emitted a small snort that meant, "Get on with your business and leave me alone."

Ferocious turned towards Kestrel. "So, where do you want to go?" he asked.

Kestrel thought of this for a moment. "I know of a cave near the waterfall, east of the Diamond Spray Delta."

"That sounds interesting," Ferocious stated. Then, they both unfolded their wings and flew off in the direction of the Diamond Spray Delta.


	3. Chapter III

_Four decades later..._  
She had enough. She was tired of waiting for the SkyWing, named Ferocious, to finish his mourning for his deceased mate and dragonets. Sprinkles of the RainWings was sent to him to get fifteen batches of SandWing poison antidote for Queen Magnificent.

It was early morning when Sprinkles flew to his cave and waited for him at the entrance. The cave was slightly damp, with no moisture in the air at all. It was also very warm.

Instead of mysteriously appearing out of the gloom of the cave, like a NightWing upon its prey, as it was rumored, Ferocious did not appear at all. Instead, all Sprinkles could hear is the loud bawling of his cries. She, then felt pity for him suddenly. After waiting for several moments, she decided to go find Ferocious and comfort him. She slowly began making her way deeper into the cave.

The cave contained, as it was rumored, eight sub-caves, four of which were manually constructed. The first sub-cave was too small to be of any practical value, so, it was left empty. From the entrance, the second sub-cave looked empty; it was actually the writing room for Ferocious. It was also rumored that Ferocious used this point-of-view to persuade his visitors not to plunge any deeper into his cave without him. This didn't stop Sprinkles from finding Ferocious in the third sub-cave, which contained his sleeping quarters.

Ferocious was curled up in a corner, in which a small puddle of tears has formed in front of him. His loud bawling have subsided to soft was covered with a blanket that looked as if it was was made from layers of sheep's fluff that was straightened and then woven with more sheep's fluff. He also appeared to have not eaten for a day or two. Sprinkles' observations couldn't be more accurate.

"What's wrong?" Sprinkles asked with care in her voice.

Ferocious acted as if Sprinkles didn't even exist. Sprinkles thought of something else to say.

"I come from the Rainforest Kingdom," Sprinkles stated in a loud and clear voice that echoed off the cave walls and made Ferocious stop crying and stare at the RainWing with both of his orange-red eyes that were blood-shot from crying. "I have come here to-"

"Hold on. Let me get something from the other room," Ferocious interjected with calm and just a hint of sadness in his voice. He then got up, wiggled the sheep's fluff blanket off of him, and exited the cave, leaving behind his shocked, bewildered, and amused RainWing guest debating whether or not this SkyWing she has just met would be a better partner than Hercules, her very annoying, and current, mate in which she was forced to live and mate with upon her parents' request. They already have a clutch of eggs, but Sprinkles thought that Hercules wouldn't become the father she wanted him to be.

Ferocious' voice suddenly cut through her thoughts like claws through flesh. "So, what is your name, RainWing?"

Sprinkles jumped with surprise that Ferocious managed to re-enter the cave, with a medium-sized scroll, that was completely blank, a good-sized quill, and an ink well. He also managed to sneak by Sprinkles, set everything down neatly, take off the lid of the ink well, dip the quill into it, and write a list of questions down on the scroll without ever drawing her attention once.

She looked into Ferocious' orange-red eyes with her own dark-green eyes. She flinched as those very handsome eyes bored into hers until, finally, she gave in.

"Sprinkles," she stated calmly, with a sigh.

Ferocious wrote something down, presumably her name, underneath the title, which she did not see before, which clearly said, "Rainforest Notes."

"Question one," Ferocious began, "can you please describe the rainforest?"

It was nearly sunset when Ferocious finally put down his quill and said, "Thank you for coming. By the way, what was your original intention?"

"I've come to place an order of fifteen batches of SandWing poison antidote for Queen Magnificent."

This was surprising. He just finished a batch of ten SandWing poison antidotes just two months ago for Queen Dazzling. Were the RainWings being attacked by one of the three sisters? Probably. Ferocious decided to move on and not worry about it.

"O.K., but I just ran out a month ago, so I'll need to make more later, after I've eaten, that is." His stomach rumbled violently.

"I'll catch you something so you can preserve your strength." She looked at the medium-sized scroll, in which it contained all of the notes on the rainforest that Sprinkles has just told Ferocious about. "You've done enough today, anyways."

After Ferocious ate the stag that Sprinkles caught him, he thanked and dismissed her.

When Sprinkles flew out of the cave and towards the Rainforest Kingdom, she decided to visit Ferocious everyday until the order was complete.

That decision would have an enormous impact on her life.


End file.
